The overall objective of our Fogarty Training Program is to increase research capacity to identify and evaluate strategies to interrupt the transmission and pathogenesis of leishmaniasis and other vector-borne diseases endemic in Colombia (Dengue and Malaria). With the aim of building long-term sustainable capacity to address national and regional research needs, the parent grant has enabled Yale and CIDEIM to develop and deliver a series of live learning post-graduate courses on topics relevant to vector-borne prevention, treatment and control that are not sufficiently covered in traditional graduate and post-graduate academic curricula. At the same time, there is a critical need for strengthening core research skills which can be applied to the development, planning, implementation, evaluation and subsequent writing of research on any infectious disease or public health issue. The general aim of this application is to build institutional capacity in CIDEIM to develop and use virtual e-learning methodologies to develop virtual training programs focused on health research management skills and access to information. More specifically, this application is to: (1) develop an appropriate, user-friendly, interactive online version of the "Effective Project Planning and Evaluation for Health Research" (EPPE) training program;(2) develop an online training program in Access to Scientific Literature;(3) transfer an existing Biostatistics course taught at CIDEIM to a fully online format;(4) offer these new virtual courses through the CIDEIM website and explore other avenues to make these courses widely available to health students, researchers and practitioners. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The activities outlined above will ensure the development of expertise in the creation, implementation and dissemination of online curricula, and the application of the same to virtual training programs to strengthen core health research skills. Virtual modalities will facilitate the integration of this training into higher education curricula and provide flexible continuing education possibilities for health researchers and practitioners.